Little Sibling

Little siblings are a strange breed. When you think about it, they’re essentially just miniature, more refined versions of you. They’re your parents’ second, more experienced attempt. They’re the innocent to your guilty—the Able to your Cain. Well, that’s what my experience has been like anyway. My little brother is five years younger than me, and ever since the little bastard was born he’s taken on the role of being this smaller, more virtuous, more loved version of myself. It’s like the kid can do no wrong. And it’s really fucking annoying.

Did you know that fetuses masturbate in the womb? Well they do. And so did you, probably. That’s you, banging one out before you’ve even left the gate. A sinner before you’re even conscious enough to sin. But not Little Brother. He could never do such a thing. It’s not in his blood. While your embryo was jerking-off all over itself, his was getting a masters degree in philanthropy.

When Little Brother was born, I hated him. Rightly so. All the little rodent ever did was cry and shit and look like a blob. But for some reason, everyone worshiped him. After he was born the main topic of conversation was how beautiful a baby he was. “He looks nothing like you did, Karley,” my mother would say, smiling down at her divine bundle of drool and vomit. “Karley was a fat baby. Karley, did you know you were a fat baby? Well you were- almost nine pounds. I was afraid you’d never lose your baby weight.” I was reminded of this constantly.

When the stupid little shit Little Brother turned two, he announced that he was going to be a priest. Naturally. He could barely speak, but every evening after saying our dinner grace, the precocious little blob would stand up in his high chair, arms raised toward the heavens and shout “Amen!” This made my Jesus-loving mother ecstatic, like she had birthed the second coming of Christ. She took to inviting friends over for dinner, just so they could witness her child savior in action. “Bless him,” she would say as her darling little freak-show worked his magic. “He just does that sometimes. I have no idea where he got it from.” This was my mother’s favorite game.

As my brother got older, he was known in school as the kid who didn’t know about things. You know, dirty things, like sex, drugs, and MTV- the consequence of being the prisoner of an overtly controlling maniac. The ignorant little shit still believed in Santa Clause at the age of twelve.

“Mommy, all the kids at school say there’s no such thing as Santa,” said Little Brother one December afternoon, mouth soggy with peanut butter. “But I still believe.”

“That’s because you have faith darling,” my mother responded lovingly, stroking his clueless little face. “Not many people do. You should be proud.” Gag me with a fucking spoon.

At the age of fourteen, Little Brother founded the Highland High School Kindness Foundation. While I was going drugs and having unprotected sex, he was raising money for incontinent old people and providing fashionable headwear for kids with Leukemia. He was visiting my dead grandmother’s grave. He was eating free-range eggs. He was donating $5 a month to save the lives of starving children in the war-torn villages of… wherever.

And it didn’t end there. His kindness keeps growing. His perfectly sanitized little brain keeps thinking up new ways to make me look evil in comparison. And where does that leave me? Where are my hugs? My looks of admiration? My undivided attention? More and more it seems you’ve got to be the product of the Immaculate fucking Conception to get some love in this family. Well you know what? It got boring in the Garden of Eden, and it’s lonely in perfection. And you can do all the good deeds your over-zealous heart desires, but it’s not going to change the eternal nothingness you face when you’re crushed by a falling piece of scaffolding. Or you slip and crack your head open on the bathroom floor. Or something equally as anti-climactic.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t love the angelic little bastard. I do, really. I just wish he’d never been born. Or that he would just die already so we could get on with mourning his martyred soul.

Some pictures of Little Bro eating his favorite foods, chicken wings and a chicken salad sandwich, in the shower.